The usual copyright BS. I don't own Animorphs and I ain't makin any money off this.
~The Last Ronin~
"Raquel, are you and Tobias fucking?" Alex asks.
Silence descends on the dinner table. Next to me, Tobias starts to choke on whatever he was eating. My father glares at him. Kyle starts laughing. My face gets hot. For her part at least, my mother manages to look shocked. Alex, however, just looks confused at our various reactions. Clearly he has no idea what exactly he just asked.
"Alex, where in the world did you hear that word?" my mother demands. I can think of a couple dozen place he might have heard it, at least half of which my mom is aware of herself - but she'd taken to reading parenting self-help books for the last year and that was the appropriate response by their reckoning. Even with all the places Alex might have heard that word, it's easy enough to narrow down where...or rather who...he heard it from.
"Piotr was talking to Darian and he said the only reason Raquel and Tobias are together is because they're..."
"Ok, I understand," my mother interrupts before Alex can repeat the word.
"Well, are you?" Alex looks at me again. Silence once again falls over the table and my father continues to glare at my boyfriend; his look telling everyone that Tobias is a hairsbreadth away from a very painful death - depending on my answer.
Despite myself I blush a little hotter. It's not true, but still...this isn't a conversation I want to have with any of my family, never mind all of them. At least Kyle has the decency to look away, his own face a bit red. He doesn't want to hear this anymore than I want to say it.
The truth is, despite being together for nearly two years, Tobias hasn't so much as kissed me. In fact, he barely touches me. No groping, no coping a feel, no grabbing my ass...not even a hickey for me to try to hide.
It's frustrating really...it's more like we're just really good friends than anything else. He hugs me and holds my hand and that's it. Sure he doesn't recoil anymore if I kiss him, but he doesn't respond either. The worst part about it is that I know it's not because he's not attracted to me. He has a reason for restraining himself - one I'll even agree is a good one when I'm in better moods - but still!
"Alex, you can't go around asking people that," I finally settle on, more than a little annoyed by my father's reaction.
"Why not?"
"Because it's a personal question and," I glare at my father until he looks at me, "absolutely no one else's business. What Tobias and I may or may not do when we're together is between us alone."
My father glares back at me but I ignore him. After the disaster that was Tobias and my first anniversary dating he'd tried to kick Tobias out on the grounds that he had slept with me. It had taken a while to convince my mother that the damage to the sink and remote were simply a result of me losing my temper...which then lead to me changing and going for a run to blow off some steam. My father, however, hadn't believed me and I'd had to resort to threatening to leave if he didn't stay out of my love life before he backed off. My mother had spoken to him after about the whole thing and he gave her hell for it, but the subject never came up again.
Shortly after that my mom had "The Talk" with me. I think the awkwardness of that conversation is what got my mom into her parenting books. After all, she had two more kids to have this conversation with and if she could barely get through it with her daughter then how would she manage with her sons?
Tobias had gotten his own "talk" from my father too. Although I think it was more him being threatened with bodily harm if he so much as had the suggestion of a fantasy about me. I'd been embarrassed about it but Tobias found the entire situation extraordinarily entertaining.
Now that I think of it, Kyle is probably due for his own "talk" soon. He recently discovered girls after all. I have to admit that I'm kind of curious to know what his entails.
Tobias starts to get up then, apparently realizing that that's not the best move given how my father is still glaring at him, decides to sit back down. I sigh. We're going to be stuck here until one of us answers. He looks at me and I can see in his eyes that he's realized this as well. He sighs himself.
"No Alex, your sister and I aren't sleeping together," he doesn't look at my father.
"What does sleeping together have to do with..." Alex starts.
"'Sleeping together' is the more polite way of saying what you did," Tobias interrupts as my mother braces herself. I don't think it's the word so much as the fact that it's coming out of her eight year old's mouth that's bothering her.
"Oh," I can almost see the wheels in his head turning and hear the click as he makes some connection. Too late, I realize exactly what he's thinking, "so then Raquel and Kyle and I were fucking during thunderstorms?"
Silence again. This time Kyle's face is as red as I'm sure mine is. Tobias is the first to crack and he starts laughing. At least he sees the joke.
"No," I finally manage to get out - could this be any more embarrassing?-, "no Alex."
"But..." he starts.
"Alex the phrase 'sleeping together' has two meanings," Kyle interrupts this time, his face still red, "one means...what you said and the other refers to what we did when we were little and scared of the thunder."
"Oh, ok," Alex nods and goes back to eating his hamburger, the conversation already practically forgotten.
Slowly we resume our meal. My father's mood is noticeably worse and my mother seems relieved that that crisis was averted. Kyle makes a point of not looking anywhere but his plate.
Tobias still chuckles every now and then and I can see him watching me out of the corner of his eye, a grin the size of the grand canyon plastered on his face.
x-x-x-x-x
I have to say, that was the most entertaining meal I've had since the last time Raquel tried to cook. She's been quiet ever since we were able to make our escape though. There's something she wants to talk about - I can see it in her face. And I've a pretty good idea what that something is, given the conversation we had during dinner. Better to nip this in the bud before she starts brooding.
"The answer is no," I say to her and stop walking down the trail we're exploring.
"Huh?" she must really be thinking about this if she didn't pick up on what I'm talking about.
"The question you want to ask...the answer is no," she makes a face as I say that. It would seem I was right in my guess. She sighs and I can already hear the old argument coming back.
"Why not?" she asks in the best "adult" tone she can manage. So she's going to try a mature approach this time. She's already tried whining, begging and threatening. I find myself a nice patch of grass to sit in and motion for her to join me.
"Don't you think that that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves here? Considering I haven't even kissed you yet?" I ask once she sits.
"And why haven't you?" she grumps, "have I not made it obvious that I want you to?"
"Blindingly," I laugh and take her hand - she's easily distracted -, " but someday your dad is going to find out how old I am and he's going to go through the roof. I'd like to be able to assure him when that happens that I haven't done anything incredibly inappropriate with his underage daughter. Maybe he'll even let me live then and just settle for breaking every bone in my body."
She grimaces and laughs. I'm being dramatic of course but that doesn't change the fact that there's a very real chance her father will kill me when he finds out my age.
"That's not the only reason though," she looks away, her voice bitter, "you're still thinking about her."
I look away myself. What can I say? She's not wrong. Even I know that wanting to appease her father is just an excuse. A good one to be sure, but still an excuse. Really, I just can't let go of Rachel.
"That's not fair," she says quietly, leaning against me and tracing the contours of my arm with her free hand, "how can I compete with a ghost?"
x-x-x-x-x
I tremble as I lean against him. It hurts to be so close to him and yet still so very far away. No matter what I can't reach him so long as Rachel is standing in my way. Wasn't it enough to hurt him by getting herself killed? Why does she have to haunt him like this? Why does she have to haunt me?
With a snarl I leap to my feet and turn on him.
"I hate her!" I yell, "I wish she'd never been born! Then neither of us would have to hurt like this!"
The instant the words leave my mouth I realize I went too far. His face clouds over and turns red. He stands, his body shaking, and clenches his fists till blood drips from them. For a second I brace myself for the blow that must be coming. He isn't the kind of guy who would ever hit his girlfriend, but if he has any buttons to drive him to that I certainly just hammered on them.
"Tobias I..."
"Well you're right about that," he says quietly and yet still managing to roll right over me, "if she'd never been born you wouldn't be hurting now...because we would have lost The War and I would have been dead nearly twenty years ago."
"Twenty years ago, twenty years ago!" my anger gets the better of me again, "Is that all you think about? The war is over Tobias! It's over and she's dead! She's nothing but a pile of ashes in an urn somewhere. So let her go already and be with me!"
"Let her go and be with you?" his voice is even quieter now, "She was my..."
"I know she was your girlfriend!" I'm back to yelling, I can't stop myself, "But now I am!"
"You?" the question in his voice as he says that pierces me, like my heart has just been cut in two, "You are a child who I am humoring on the advice of an old woman whose sanity is questionable at best. Be with you you say? What in the world makes you think I want to be with you? Or that you could even be with me?"
I open my mouth to reply but no sound comes out. Not that I'm even certain what I can say to that. Humoring me? Has that all these past two years have been? Humoring me?
"You jackass," I whisper, finding my voice again though it's still difficult to breathe as I fight off tears, "what gives you the right to toy with me like this?"
"Oh? You don't like this game anymore Princess?" he laughs, "You should have thought about that before you bit me."
"I've said I'm sorry!" I nearly shriek, my own hands balling into fists, "But this is my life you're messing with! I wanted you to be a part of it but if it's such a hardship then leave!"
We glare at one another for several minutes, our faces nearly touching. The woods around us are quiet. Apparently the animals have decided that being near two angry werewolves is not in their best interest.
"Fine," he says, breaking the silence, "I don't see you helping me get what I want anyway."
He turns and stalks off, already pulling off his shirt. I hear the rustle of his clothing falling into the grass followed by grinding and popping as he changes and then nothing.
It takes me a long time to get my anger under control - a long time during which my body continuously starts changing before I reign it in and reverse the process. Blood trickles from my palms where my claws have broken through my skin with each clench of my fists. Distantly I realize it hurts but it's meaningless next to the feeling of my heart being ripped out. I feel hollow, empty - like the rest of my insides fell out of the gaping hole in my chest.
I look down, expecting to find my shirt soaked with blood. It's soaked alright, but with the product of a cold sweat, not a life threatening wound.
I stare at it and slowly uncurl my fist to probe the area. Where's the hole? I can feel it but I don't see it...
My knees buckle and I sink to the ground, not paying attention to my long hair dragging in the dirt. I've let it grow out these past couple years - not because I've been too lazy to bother getting it cut like I told anyone who asked but because she had long hair and a part of me had hoped that maybe if I looked more like her Tobias would...I shake my head. What am I doing? Of course he doesn't want to be with me. I don't even know who me is.
x-x-x-x-x
I run faster than ever before. Trees and bushes whip past me in green and brown blurs. Birds fall silent as I race beneath their branches but I barely spare them a glance.
How dare she! To talk about my Rachel like that! It had taken everything I had not to hit her right then - it's still taking everything I have to not turn around. I'm just not sure what I'll do if I do: attack her or apologize.
Truthfully I hadn't been able to stop myself. After what she said I just needed to hurt her as much as she hurt me. So I threw the most vicious lie I could think of at her. It had done exactly what I'd intended. Sort of.
She tried to hide it - had done very well actually - but the agony my words caused her was too great and I saw it clearly on her face. My own heart had simultaneously given a painful tug in my chest. I was the cause of her pain and that knowledge hurt me far more than I'm comfortable with.
Pain I've dealt with my entire life, but this is something else entirely. I haven't hurt this much since...even if that was still far worse.
What I said isn't true. Sure at first I had been humoring her for the sake of Calli's advice. As time passed though...The truth is that I really do like Raquel - far more than I ever intended to.
But when I'm with her it's too easy to forget. Forget how old I am; forget the Yeerks and the Animorphs and The War. Too easy to forget Rachel. There are so many nightmares in those other memories that I'd love to forget, but if forgetting them means forgetting Rachel too, then I'll gladly live with them.
No matter what, I can't forget her. I won't.
I've been heading southwest, towards my old home - the place I always go when I need to be alone. But that's not what I want now. Now I want someplace new to distract myself - someplace where no one and nothing will find me.
Turning about, I head north.
x-x-x-x-x
I'm not sure how long I've been sitting here, but the sun set awhile ago. Now a large full moon hangs in a cloudless, star filled sky. The woods are still quiet. Even the nocturnal animals are giving me as much space as possible. Not that they have to worry. I'm really not in the mood to move at all, let alone change and chase them.
As unaware as I am, I don't realize that I'm not alone until someone seemingly materializes in front of me. I jump up, ready to fight off my attacker - who else would approach a young girl at night in the middle of the woods?
"Relax child," a familiar voice laughs and I lower my fists.
"Grandma Calli? What are you doing here?" I stare at the older woman. She's barefoot and carrying a large basket.
"I could ask you the same," she muses, pulling a small plant from the ground and giving it a sniff, "but my herbs don't collect themselves and some are easiest to find in the moonlight."
I fall silent and the sound of crickets fill the air. Apparently the animals aren't afraid of me now that Grandma Calli is here. Go figure. Grandma Calli bustles about, collecting her plants and examining others.
"You know," she says finally, "I was at the bakery in town the other day when this couple got into a might row with one another. I'd never seen such a thing before in all my life - something of a feat, believe you me. So I turned to Conrad - you remember Conrad, he used to give you cookies when you were little - and asked what all that had been about.
"He just laughed and said 'Oh that's just Tom and Harriet having their weekly blow up. Nothing to worry about.'
"'Nothing to worry about?' I said, 'They look like they're about to kill one another.' He laughed again.
"So he told me that they'd been married for almost forty years and for as long as he could remember they had at least one fight like that every week of that time. It always blew over in a few hours and they would be back to laughing and joking with one another as if nothing had happened at all."
She grows silent and fusses with something in her basket for a few minutes.
"An interesting story I think; how something that seems so bad at first really isn't," she says to herself.
Even I realize that she's not really talking about her story anymore. How does she even know? Tears trickle down my cheeks and I sob.
"Shh my little warrior princess. It'll be ok," she hugs me.
"I don't know Grandma," I cry, "I said a lot of bad things."
"Did you mean them?"
"No," I sniffle.
"Then it'll be ok," she smiles at me, "you two are a pair of the most stubborn people I've ever met - another feat. This won't do anything but bring you closer. You'll see."
I don't see how. After what I said I don't think he'll come back, let alone forgive me. In either case I don't know what I'm going to do.
How am I going to live with this hole in my chest?